Julia Görges (Bad Oldesloe) has reached her fourth final of the current season at the WTA tournament in Moscow and can replace Angelique Kerber as Germany’s number one with a final on Saturday.
The 28-year-old Goerges defeated the Russian Natalia Vikhlyantseva 6-2,2-6,7-5 in the semi-finals and is now playing her countrywoman Daria Kasatkina for her first tournament win in six years.
In the event of a final success, Görges, who had meanwhile slipped out of the top 100, would be the first since the 18th place next week. February 2013 will once again be among the best 20 players in the world. The two-time Grand Slam winner Kerber, on the other hand, will lose her points from the WTA Final 2016 in the coming ranking and, after five and a half years, will be out of the top 20.
Kerber, who did not qualify for the tour finals starting on Sunday after a weak season, was last on 25th January. May 2015 is not the best German in the WTA ranking. At that time she was in eleventh place, Andrea Petkovic (Darmstadt) was tenth.
Görges, who lost the finals of Mallorca, Bucharest and Washington this year and won her second and last tournament in Stuttgart in 2011, turned her first match ball after 1:58 hours. In the decisive round, she had already led 5:3, but then had to detention.
Here the single panel in Moscow